House once owned by daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder for sale

Dirk Perrefort

Published 8:32 pm, Friday, August 29, 2014

Owner Linda Raftery stands in the sun room of the historic former home of Rose Wilder Lane, daughter of Laura Ingals Wilder, at 23 King Street in Danbury. The house is currently for sale.
Photo: Autumn Driscoll

Realtor Demaree Cooney stands in the dining room of the historic former home of Rose Wilder Lane, daughter of Laura Ingals Wilder, at 23 King Street in Danbury. The house is currently for sale.
Photo: Autumn Driscoll

DANBURY -- When Linda Raftery's husband was battling cancer, he found a great deal of comfort sitting near the warmth of the kitchen fireplace overlooking the babbling waterfall in the backyard.

The fireplace, and the wall of windows overlooking the expansive 2-acre property, were the brainchild of Rose Wilder Lane, daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little House series, and a celebrated author in her own right.

Lane purchased the house in 1938, according to the Danbury Museum and Historical Society, and lived there for more than three decades until her death in 1968. Raftery, who lived in the house for the past 18 years, recently put the home on the market.

When Lane lived in the home, she did much of the renovations and improvements to the structure herself. Raftery noted that the city forced Lane to remove a large addition in the 1960s because she hadn't received any permits for the work.

According to a history of Lane written by William T. Anderson, she loved homemaking and was continually remodeling the home to make it a place of charm and comfort. Anderson, who conversed extensively with Lane through letters, recounted her words in his book "Laura's Rose," as she thought about renovating the kitchen.

"Well, I had read Thoreau," she wrote, "and I was living the simple life, but you know how it is. Every woman in every house is always dreaming of making it over. I often thought: If that pantry were gone, I wonder how big ... That west wall all windows; afternoon sun flooding in. A big, sunny kitchen with a fireplace."

The fireplace is one of three in the home, which includes a variety of interesting and unique features that date to the time of its most famous owner. Porcelain doorknobs with rose stencils, cedar-lined closets, a library with room for more than 10,000 books and unexpected porches are among them.

"This is such a wonderful family house that it's going to be really sad to leave," Raftery said. "But after my husband passed away last year I just can't keep it up by myself anymore. The home was warm and inviting from the first moment I stepped inside."

When Lane moved into the home in the 1930s, she planned to be completely self-sustaining on the property, having huge reservations about the politics of the day, including the New Deal and Social Security. Lane grew all her own vegetables and raised her own animals.

"By 1944, Rose was so distressed with what she saw as `regimentation by the New Deal and wartime tactics that she took another drastic step," Anderson wrote. "She announced that she was `taking to the storm cellar until the Roosevelt administration blows over.' "

When reporters flocked to her Danbury home to discuss her retirement from writing, Lane, intent on showing the reporters how she intended to survive, led them to the basement, according to Anderson, where she showed them 800 jars of produce that "glowed like gems."

"That's social security," she said at the time.

While it received little acclaim when it was published, Lane's book, "Discovery of Freedom: Man's Struggle Against Authority," helped to launch the modern American libertarian movement.

The 3,500-square-foot home, which is on King Street, was listed last month by Demaree Cooney with ERA Goodfellow Homes for $450,000. The home was built in 1876 and includes four bedrooms, three bathrooms and a half-bath. The gated property includes rock walls, an expansive patio, gardens and a waterfall that cascades into the koi pond.